[2023] Have 2.5D objects been discussed?

Originally posted by Lesh-9: By the community, sure. A few times over the years.
By the devs? -No.

And I can't blame them. The CPU resources needed for structural integrity alone would make that an absolute nightmare. It already is.

Clustering the voxel universe even more would pull this game out of "possible with today's technology" than it already is.

They're doing a great job with what is available with current tech. Maybe when technology catches up.

Actually, slightly incorrect here. Early-on in development they did consider switching to micro-voxels, and looked into it. They discovered that it would require re-writing most of the base code for the voxel blocks, and that it would add a huge level of complexity to further development. They made the choice to stick with what they have. Off the top of my head, that was around a12 or a13 that this was discussed.

Landmark had a similar system, but with a fixed terrain. So disappointed that one didn't pan out.

I have thought it would be useful to have an invisible sign. That is, just the writable aspect with no backing, so it could be placed in front of whatever block. But for lying flush against a partial shape block… I don’t see how that could happen for the reasons described above.

One thing the devs have discussed more recently is a more robust decal system, e.g. for road markings. If we’re lucky maybe that (still theoretical) tech could be borrowed for the case OP us describing.